人妖色情片

What Strawder heard was an Air Force B-25 Mitchell medium bomber slamming into an upper slope of West Virginia人妖色情片檚 highest mountain, about 2 miles west of his home, then bursting into flames, killing all nine men aboard.

News of that deadly crash 75 years ago appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the country but soon faded from memory, thanks in part to the United States becoming immersed in the Korean War less than two weeks later.

Allen Harmon of Cross Lanes, who rediscovered the site of the Monongahela National Forest crash three years ago, would like to see a monument or historic marker placed along a road or at a roadside viewpoint in the general vicinity of the crash site.

人妖色情片淚 don人妖色情片檛 think the guys who died in that crash should be forgotten,人妖色情片� said Harmon, a retired truck driver and amateur aviation archeologist who has rediscovered 70 crash sites in and around West Virginia.

As a personal tribute to the downed bomber and its crew, Harmon built a 1/32-scale model of the B-25, which rests on an aluminum stand fashioned from a propeller hub found at the crash site. A metal tag attached to the display is engraved with the names and ranks of the accident人妖色情片檚 nine victims.

The aircraft人妖色情片檚 authentic paint scheme, numbers and markings are incorporated on Harmon人妖色情片檚 model, which he exhibits in model shows across the region.

What happened that night?

According to an Air Force investigation of the accident, which Harmon obtained through his contacts with Air Force historians, the ill-fated flight of B-25J No. 44-31106 ended about one hour after it began at 2:24 a.m. on June 14, 1950, at Olmsted Air Force Base, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

人妖色情片淎t approximately 0330 Eastern Standard Time, 44-31106 crashed and burned on Spruce Knob approximately 100 feet from the top of the mountain at an altitude of 4,700 feet,人妖色情片� stated a preliminary report filed two weeks after the accident.

According to an Associated Press account of the crash, which appeared in The Charleston Gazette and numerous other newspapers the day after the event, a West Virginia State 人妖色情片 search party that arrived at the scene on the morning of the accident found that the bomber struck the mountainside with such force that its two engines were flung about 1,500 feet from the point of impact.

All aboard the aircraft were dead at the scene.

人妖色情片淭wo bodies were thrown clear of the plane and into the trees,人妖色情片� according to the AP account. 人妖色情片淎nother was found, burnt nearly beyond recognition, in a sitting position on a nearby rock.人妖色情片�

The State 人妖色情片 search party found partially burned WAF (Women人妖色情片檚 Air Force) uniforms and shoes at the crash scene, leading them to search for additional female victims. But as it turned out, at the time of the crash, the B-25 was returning to its home field 人妖色情片� Hill Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah 人妖色情片� with a cargo of uniforms for a new contingent of WAF personnel who had recently arrived with only the uniforms they were wearing.

For reasons that apparently never have been determined, the B-25 had been flying about 62 degrees off course, or about 115 miles south of the planned flight route, from Olmsted AFB to a planned refueling stop at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, at the time of the crash.

The aircraft had been cleared to fly at 4,000 feet westward from Olmsted until contacting air traffic control at Altoona, Pennsylvania, for further instructions. But the B-25 never contacted Altoona, according to the Air Force accident report.

人妖色情片淚t is apparent from the distance covered, 175 miles, from take-off to time of crash, that the aircraft must have flown a direct course from Olmsted to Spruce Knob,人妖色情片� according to an accident report narrative.

Accident report theorizes the cause, or causes, of the crash

人妖色情片淲hile the cause of the crash is undetermined and the reason for deviating from the original flight clearance is unknown, it can be reasonably presumed from information from witnesses人妖色情片� statements that the pilot and crew did not have adequate rest prior to flight,人妖色情片� according to the accident report. 人妖色情片淭his could be a major cause of the accident.人妖色情片�

Air Force records indicate that the B-25人妖色情片檚 pilot, 1st Lt. Christ T. Economos, had received a maximum of 4陆 to 5 hours of sleep in the 24-hour period before his fatal flight. Three hours after arriving at Olmsted AFB on the morning of June 13, Economos and his crew flew to Philadelphia to pick up the WAF uniforms, returning to Olmsted late that night, catching only a few hours of rest before departing on what was supposed to have been the first leg of their homeward flight.

Master Sgt. Neal Moss, the aircraft人妖色情片檚 flight engineer, was so tired and difficult to awaken prior to the flight that Economos ordered him to brief one of the Air Force Reserve pilots making the trip for training purposes on how to transfer fuel while in flight. Moss was then told to take a seat at the rear of the plane and get some sleep.

Mechanical issues also could have been a factor in the crash. The B-25J, built by North American Aviation in 1944, 人妖色情片渉ad been converted into a VIP plane,人妖色情片� Harmon said. 人妖色情片淚t had its top turret removed and passenger seats installed.

According to the accident investigation, the aircraft was known to aviators at Hill AFB as 人妖色情片渢he general人妖色情片檚 aircraft,人妖色情片� because it was often used by the base commander. It was maintained accordingly.

Four days before the B-25 was flown from the Utah air base to Olmsted, its two engines were changed out. The engines appeared to have been in good running order following a two-hour test flight on June 9, 1950, and on a five-hour roundtrip flight to McClellan Air Force Base, California, on June 12.

But shortly after arriving at Olmsted on the morning of June 13, Moss, the flight engineer, filed a request to 人妖色情片渉ave the right engine人妖色情片檚 magneto checked, as the engine was cutting out.人妖色情片� Records show that Olmsted人妖色情片檚 aircraft maintenance staff cleaned the magneto人妖色情片檚 points and replaced its front bank of spark plugs.

The engine was then run up and performed satisfactorily, with Moss signing off on the work. Less than an hour later, the aircraft departed Olmsted for Philadelphia to pick up the WAF uniforms.

About three hours after that, the B-25 returned to Olmsted, where Moss requested that the rear bank of spark plugs on the right engine also be replaced. The work was completed several hours before the aircraft departed on its ill-fated flight home.

Records indicate that Economos, an Air Force pilot since 1944, had 1,003 hours of flying time as a pilot, an additional 966 hours as a co-pilot or student pilot, and 40 hours of World War II combat flight time. After the war, he also flew several missions during the 1948 Berlin Airlift.

Nearly 10,000 B-25s were built by North American during World War II. They were flown on bombing missions by U.S. and Allied aircrews across the globe, but mainly in the Pacific region against Japan.

In April 1942, four months after Japan人妖色情片檚 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, 16 B-25s, under the command of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, were launched from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo and four other Japanese cities. It was the first aerial bombing of the Japanese home islands by Americans in the war.